Esme-Strawberrygirl+ITEAMS

esme-strawberrygirl ELA **__Saturn__**

**Our solar system is composed of a sun, eight planets, an asteroid belt and many dwarf planets, but there was a time when there wasn’t much knowledge of our spectacular solar system. One of those unknown things was Saturn, a beautiful and mysterious planet, with large rings and many moons. Its atmosphere looks like pieces of lemon meringue pie, but is very dangerous. Although we cannot habitat Saturn, we can study it and learn about how it formed and how it would feel on Saturn.**

//__Discovery__// **Saturn is the most distant planet that we can see with our naked eyes but, it’s very hard to see all of its rings. In ancient Rome, every December they would hold a festival called Saturnalia, in honor of Saturn, the God of the harvest. For the ancient Chinese, Saturn was “the Earth star”. He was also as Shani, the judge of the Heavenly Gods. Later in the 1600s, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei discovered all of Saturn's rings with his small telescopes. This discovery then opened the door for many astronomers to study this mysterious planet. Also the existence of moonlets has an important implication for the origin of its rings. Astronomers predict that the ring system formed from an icy moons and a comet smashing into pieces that then started to orbit around the planet and became the rings.**

**Saturn is a magnificent and abstract planet with seven rings that are really millions of rocks and ice orbiting around it. Also, Saturn gives off more than twice as much heat as it receives from the sun. Saturn rotates faster than any other planet excluding Jupiter. Its axis is tilted 27 degrees from a vertical position. It has 18 official moons and many Shepard moons, or moons that orbit near the rings made of material left over from Saturn.**

**Saturn is the 2nd biggest planet in the Solar System, right behind Jupiter. It’s 10 times bigger than Earth but less dense than liquid water. Also, it takes Saturn about 10,759 earth days to go around the sun. It has extreme weather including snowstorms, rainstorms, and** **lightning that occur all over the surface. There are many scientific predictions that Saturn has no real surface, and is just a giant ball of gas.**

//__Moons and Landforms__// **Outer layers of Saturn consist of helium, molecular hydrogen, and traces of H2O, ethane, and ammonia. Saturn's magnetic field is very powerful. The planets magnetic field dominates a large region called the magnetosphere that holds off solar winds that are filled with highly energetic protons and electrically charged particles. But when Helium collides with the solar winds they create beautiful glowing auroras in Saturn’s poles. Though on Earth they last for a few minutes on Saturn they can last for days. Researchers using NASA’s Hubble telescope took a video of both Southern and Northern Auroras illuminating the skies above Saturn at the same time. This only happens every 15 years or so.**

**Titan is the biggest moon of Saturn, with a thick atmosphere and many similar aspects to that of young Earth. There are many lakes and rains Ethane, a chemical that is highly flammable. In five million years, the sun will make Earth too hot to live in, but Titan will warm up and become close to what Earth is now. However because of the Ethane, it would be very dangerous if oxygen was exposed, so an icier moon like Hyperion would be a better choice.**

**Rhea, the second biggest moon, has an icy surface and bright craters. Its density proves that it may have a rocky core. Though Rhea shows no geological activity some cracks show that there was tectonic activity in the past and it’s also on the list of** **possible replacements for Earth.**

//__Exploration__// **The first probe sent to Saturn was Pioneer II, sent in April of 1973. It didn’t reach Saturn until September 1979. Pioneer II was able to take the first up close pictures of Saturn. Once up there it measured Saturn’s radiation belt and magnetic field.**

**In 1980, Voyager I was launched by NASA, destined to explore Neptune, but on its way there it stopped to take images that of Saturn’s rings, which showed its rings not as a circular sheet around the planet, but as small fragments of ice and rock orbiting the planet around its equator. Even though it does seem like sheets of rings around Saturn that is far from what is really going on.**

**Cassini, a craft named after Italian-born French Astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini, who made mayor discoveries of Saturn in 16oo's, left earth in 1997 but did not reach the planet until the year 2004. With him he had Huygens, a probe destined for landing on Titan to study its atmosphere, named also after Christian Huygens who discovered Titan in 1665. Cassini was about the size of a 30-passenger school bus and is still operational today, orbiting Saturn and stopping at moons occasionally.**

<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.4in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -1pt;">**All planets have good and bad aspects, but Saturn has so much to offer and still many unsolved mysteries that await astronomers in the future. Maybe it’s special because it’s huge, or maybe because there is no surface on which to land, but in any case Saturn isn’t an unimportant planet. It is still needed to make up our solar system. Is Saturn better than Earth? That question is left for you to answer.**

//Refrences//
<span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica; font-size: 13px; height: 100%; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 100%;"><span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24pt; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="display: block; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 3em; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding: 0px; text-indent: -3em;">// Encyclopædia Britannica Online School Edition //. Web. 10 Jan. 2011. <http://school.eb.com/comptons/article-273987?query=Saturn&ct=>. Hendrix, Amanda R. "Rhea." World Book Advanced. World Book, 2011. Web. 11 Jan. 2011. Kurth, William S. "Cassini." World Book Advanced. World Book, 2011. Web. 11 Jan. 2011. Landau, Elaine. // Saturn //. New York: Children's, 2008. Print. Lunine, Jonathan I. "Saturn." World Book Advanced. World Book, 2011. Web. 11 Jan. 2011. "News Blog - Strange Twists In Saturn's Rings." // SkyandTelescope.com //. Web. 10 Jan. 2011. <http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/newsblog/98613249.html>. Sample, Ian. "Hubble Space Telescope Snaps Saturn's Twin Auroras during Rare Equinox | Science | Guardian.co.uk." // Latest News, Comment and Reviews from the Guardian | Guardian.co.uk //. Web. 11 Jan. 2011. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/feb/11/hubble-space-telescope-saturn-auroras>. "Space School: Saturn : Video : Science Channel." // Science Channel: Space, Technology, Earth Science, Geology //. Web. 11 Jan. 2011. <http://science.discovery.com/videos/space-school-saturn.html>. Sparrow, Giles. // Destination Saturn //. New York: PowerKids, 2010. Print.